Breakthrough Projects

Dialogue For Reconciliation

Conferences

Oral History & Archiving

Genocide & Human Rights University Program

A world renowned course in comparative genocide and human rights studies taught by the leading experts in the field.

“The GHRUP is a learning model creating dialogues about history and reconciliation as well as forming a community and network of committed, informed citizens and scholars worldwide.” - Joyce Apsel"I've never learned so much in such a short period of time, and, more importantly, been so motivated to action by what I've learned." - GHRUP Graduate

Breakthrough Projects

The Permanent People’s Tribunal

The Permanent People’s Tribunal

The Zoryan Institute contributed greatly to the first international forum to affirm the Armenian Genocide, providing undisputable research, documentation and eyewitness accounts required to defend the armenian case.

ECHR – European Court for Human Rights

ECHR – European Court for Human Rights

“State Oppression, Violence against Minorities, and the Possibilities for Remedial Secession and Independence”

“State Oppression, Violence against Minorities, and the Possibilities for Remedial Secession and Independence”

The Zoryan Institute, in partnership with the George Washington University Law School, held a two-day conference that analyzed the irreconcilability of two contradictory UN Principles, self determination and territorial integrity. The tension between these two principles is a cause of mass human rights violations worldwide, thus needs to be explored.

German Bundestag Recognises The Armenian Genocide

German Bundestag Recognises The Armenian Genocide

The June 2016 recognition of the Armenian Massacres as a “Genocide”, by the German Bundestag, may not have been accomplished without Wolfgang Gust’s book “ The Armenian Genocide: Evidence from the German Foreign Office Archives, 1915-1916" published by The Zoryan Institute.

Creation of The Common Body of Knowledge

Creation of The Common Body of Knowledge

The “Common Body of Knowledge” is an ongoing project undertaken by The Zoryan Institute in collaboration with major universities and scholars. It is part of a process that addresses the need for information surrounding the history and past injustices committed towards the citizens of the Ottoman Empire, particularly the Armenians and Christian minorities.

Turkish Language Publications

Turkish Language Publications

The Zoryan Institute has taken upon itself to translate and publish numerous books on the Armenian Genocide in the Turkish language in an effort to make information available and accessible to the civil society in Turkey.

Dialogue For Reconciliation

The Zoryan Institute, through its ongoing research and publications in the field of universal human rights, aims to add to the pool of resources and educational materials that help create dialogue between people in conflict. To date the Institute has focused on the following:

As a Canadian institute devoted to the study of preventing the devastating recurrence of genocide, The Zoryan Institute raises awareness to help ensure that past injustices do not further divide Canadians. Examining the abuses against Canada's Indigenous population through legal, political, cultural and social perspectives, the Zoryan Institute aims to advance the dialogue for reconciliation.The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s official report, acknowledges that:

Without truth, justice, and healing, there can be no genuine reconciliation. Reconciliation is not about “closing a sad chapter of Canada’s past,” but about opening new healing pathways of reconciliation that are forged in truth and justice.

Additional Resources

The Armenian Genocide, despite all of the evidence and documentation in various languages, including Turkish, has yet to be recognized by the Turkish government. In 2016 the German Bundestag also acknowledged and affirmed Germany’s participation and complicity in Ottoman Turkey’s crime of Genocide against Armenians and Christian populations in Anatolia. However, Turkey continues to deny the incontestability of the facts surrounding the Armenian Genocide and Ottoman Turkey’s role in it. This denial of the historic facts has resulted in over a century of tension between Armenians and Turks. The Zoryan Institute aims to reconcile this difference by developing a historiography of the period through the Common Body of Knowledge, including a series of initiatives from conferences, classes, publications and open letters to encourage dialogue.

Conferences

Our annual conferences aim to enhance public understanding and influence public opinion and policy-makers regarding current social and political issues. The Zoryan Institute strives to provide new perspectives on vital issues, using the highest academic standards, while highlighting contested questions, and encouraging new paths towards ideas, sources and understanding. We present our themes in comparative and interdisciplinary modes and the speakers come from a wide range of disciplines with many different perspectives and expertise. These include historians, social scientists, legal theorists, policymakers, and journalists.

McGill University Montreal, Canada, March 8-9 2016

“From Truth to Reconciliation: Towards a Just Future for the Indigenous Peoples of Canada”

“State Oppression, Violence against Minorities, and the Possibilities for Remedial Secession and Independence”

Oral History & Archiving

The Zoryan Institute houses a large quantity of reference and archival material, including monographs, periodicals, microfilm, photographs, memoirs, personal correspondence, official documents, etc.

Oral History

The Armenian Oral History Collection is one of Zoryan Institute’s earliest and most transformative projects. It began in 1983 when it became evident that time was running out for the generation of Armenians who had firsthand accounts of the genocide. This project is comprised of a collection videos tapes containing carefully prepared oral history interviews with over 800 survivors of the Armenian Genocide, making it the largest collection to date. The interviews elicit invaluable details about the genocide as well as the life of the Armenian people before the Genocide.

Launched in November 2016, the Syrian-Armenian Refugee Oral History Project offers new generations the opportunity to understand, interpret, and make history relevant through intimate recollections of Armenian culture told by those on the front lines of war and displacement. This collection serves to define, provoke, and reconstruct the Armenian culture, memory, and dialogue in the 21st century.

Oral History

Our collection is open and free to use to anyone who comes to the Zoryan office, where we provide the equipment and research assistance, if required. Researchers apply in advance, giving their affiliation and the purpose of the research. An agreement is signed as to the use and limits of the material. The tapes may be available upon request by direct descendants of survivors for a fee. Please contact the Institute for more information.

The Institute holds a large quantity of reference and archival material, including monographs, periodicals, microfilm, photographs, memoirs, personal correspondence, official documents, and oral histories.